NEWS RAEL Holds First Experts Workshop on the Peace Renewable Energy Credit
May 1, 2017, San Francisco — The Program on Conflict, Climate Change and Green Development, part of UC Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, convened on April 28, 2017, the first of two expert workshops on the Peace Renewable Energy Credit (PREC). A newly developed financing mechanism, the PREC is designed to encourage renewable energy investment in conflict and crisis settings. The workshops provide for leaders in the fields of climate change, renewable energy/finance and humanitarian/peacebuilding to examine, refine and help develop the PREC concept.
The San Francisco workshop was hosted by the Law Offices of Wilson, Sonsino, Goodrich & Rosati, and brought together a range of experts with national and international experience on climate and energy issues, renewable energy development and finance, and environmental markets.
The discussion took stock of the growing linkages between climate change and conflict and looked at the potential for renewable energy to contribute to promoting peace and development in the world’s conflict regions. They examined the rationale for developing the PREC, including the limitations of the current international toolkit to effectively address conflict and humanitarian crises, and were presented with scenarios of how the PREC might be applied in existing conflict settings. Participants developed strategic and technical recommendations for operationalizing the PREC mechanism in the near term. The second workshop is scheduled to be held on June 1, 2017 in Washington DC.
“As the world struggles to cope with the growing humanitarian crisis which climate change exacerbates, there is an urgent need for new thinking and new solutions”, said Professor Dan Kammen, Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory. “The PREC is an important innovation that can help make sure that the benefits of the renewable energy revolution are also reaching the places of greatest need, and potentially greatest impact. We seek partners to refine the idea and to fund the pilot phase projects in South Sudan, Myanmar, and elsewhere.”
“We can already see a number of conflict and crisis settings where new investment in renewable energy could provide multiple economic, social, political and peace benefits, but this is not current practice” said David Mozersky, Director of the Program on Conflict, Climate Change and Green Development. “The PREC can provide new impetus and financing solutions to help unlock the many near and longer-term benefits that renewable energy can offer in regions that suffer most from conflict risk, climate change vulnerability, and energy poverty.”
The Peace Renewable Energy Credit (PREC) is one of several key initiatives that the Program has developed. More information is available at rael.berkeley.edu/conflict. For information contact: David Mozersky (dmozersky@berkeley.edu); Dan Kammen (kammen@berkeley.edu).
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